Bloodline

I sent her a text message. There was no reply.

Finally, in desperation, I’d called the Staceys’ home number but Mitchell himself had answered, so I’d immediately hung up. I didn’t dare call again.

Now I studied the TV coverage from Market Rasen with particular attention to see if I could see Sarah, perhaps accompanying her husband into the parade ring before the first race. As always, the cameraman dwelt on the horses and not the people, and the horses were moving while the people were not. I caught a glimpse of Mitchell Stacey, his weather-beaten reddish face reminding me all too well of our close encounter at Newmarket on Thursday.

I couldn’t spot Sarah but, if Mitchell was definitely at Market Rasen, I could at least try to call her safely on their landline if she was at home.

‘Please, Mark,’ she said, answering after three rings. ‘I said we were not to speak again. Not ever.’

‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘You sound a bit funny.’

There was no reply.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Did he hit you?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

It was as if she was speaking through cotton wool.

‘Did he split your lip?’

‘I told you, I’m fine.’

‘What did you mean yesterday about paying the little shit?’

‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘It must have been something. And why would you pay Mitchell anyway?’

‘Leave it, Mark. Move on. Forget me. I’ve already forgotten you. Goodbye.’

She hung up.

Dammit, I thought. Why did she let him get away with hitting her?

And, to top it all, Mitchell’s bloody horse went on to win the first race at Market Rasen, Mitchell’s horrible red face appearing joyful once again as the horse was led in to unsaddle. Oh, how I would have loved to punch his lights out, to split his lip, and to see how he liked it.

As Saturday afternoon faded into Saturday evening, I lay flat-out on my battered old sofa drinking a can of lager, wondering where my life was going, and what I should do about it.

I looked up at the peeling and cracked ceiling of my sitting room.

If the truth be told, it really was well past the ‘slightly yellowing’ stage and was beginning to resemble the nicotine-stained walls of an East End pub before the smoking ban. Not that I smoked. I didn’t. But the ‘whiteness’ of the paint had been fairly suspect when it had been thinly applied by my landlord in the first place, and the eight years since had not been kind.

I sat up and looked at the whole room with fresh eyes.

I had to admit that it was pretty awful.

It was not just the paintwork that was overdue a change, it was the dilapidated and soiled furniture as well. Not to mention the carpets and the curtains, both of which were unchanged since I’d first moved in twelve years ago, and they hadn’t been new even then.

To think I’d asked Sarah to give up her luxurious East Ilsley mansion to come and live in this squalor. Was it any wonder she’d turned me down?

‘Right,’ I said out loud, ‘it is high time I made a change.’

Past time, in fact.

I quite surprised myself with my decisiveness and, after about three hours of surfing the internet, I had a pretty good idea of how much houses cost in most of the Home Counties.

By the time I went to bed at one o’clock in the morning I had a list of eight places where I might be interested in living, and the telephone numbers of six different estate agents to call first thing on Monday morning.

I found it all quite exciting and, if nothing else, it took my mind off Sarah, Clare’s funeral, and the precariousness of my employment.

On Sunday morning I drove into central London, to the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane.

I always knew that I’d have to go there eventually, but I hadn’t before felt mentally ready for the ordeal. But now seemed to be the right time, before the funeral, not that I was especially relishing the trip.

I parked my old Ford in South Audley Street, behind the hotel, and walked through to the grand frontage of the Hilton with its overhanging stainless-steel canopy.

Unsurprisingly, there was nothing to indicate where Clare had fallen to her death nine days previously. No roped-off area, no bouquets of flowers, not even a mark on the pavement to show the spot where half my being had disappeared for ever.

I looked above me at the vertical line of balconies that stretched upwards, and tried to count fifteen floors. Tears filled my eyes and stopped me. Did it matter? Fifteen wasn’t important. Ten would probably have been enough, or even five. According to a telephone call from DS Sharp to my father, the post-mortem had established the cause of death as multiple injuries consistent with Clare having fallen a considerable distance onto a hard surface.

I approached one of the uniformed and top-hatted doormen.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, trying to control my voice. ‘Where did the girl fall?’

‘Never you mind,’ he said somewhat brusquely. ‘Now, move on please, sir.’ He spread his arms and walked straight towards me, forcing me back.

‘She was my sister,’ I said to him quickly, ‘and I need to know where she died.’